


Si würde d Freiheit gwünne (wenn si dewäg z gwünne wär)

by ICryYouMercy (TrafalgarsLaw)



Category: Henry IV Part 1 - Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 2 - Shakespeare, Henry V - Shakespeare
Genre: 5+1 Things, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 14:28:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7848670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrafalgarsLaw/pseuds/ICryYouMercy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or: five times John thought he knew what was wrong, and the one time Hal made it right</p>
            </blockquote>





	Si würde d Freiheit gwünne (wenn si dewäg z gwünne wär)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lexigent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexigent/gifts).



Si würde d Freiheit gwünne (wenn si dewäg z gwünne wär)

The problem, John thought, was that Hal had never quite understood duty. Of course the king only answered to god, juridically and theologically speaking. But in a much simpler, much more worldly sense, any king wanting to remain king answered just as strictly, possibly more so, to his queen and his lords and his bishops.

And any prince worth becoming king in time would need to learn those, learn their names and minds and education, so that when they finally called upon him, he would be ready to stand and respond. John hadn't known Richard well enough or long enough to know whether he had been unwilling or unable, or simply unprepared at the wrong time, but he knew his brother. And he knew his father.

Hal's time was coming closer and closer as the king weakened under stress and what John suspected was not so much a guilty conscience over murdering a king as it was grief for the loss of one who used to be as close as a brother as he had ever had. No pilgrimage to Jerusalem would assuage that pain, and another promise broken wouldn't matter much after breaking the greatest of them all, sworn loyalty to king and crown and country. Hal's time was coming, and his trial would be harder than either king before him had had to stand.

Richard had been young and facing simple disquiet and mistrust. Henry had been barely more experienced, facing wars and rebellion and usurpation setting a terrifying precedent. Hal would inherit both sets of threats, along with his wilfully self-inflicted ignorance and inexperience. There were, and always had been, men willing to hold the line against both king and people, men willing to hold on for just long enough to replace one king with another, so that if not the person, then the title and duty would carry on until held by someone who could answer to all he needed answer to. But it had been almost three decades, and slowly but surely, the last of the men who had still served under their last stable king were dying, and their sons, for all their good will and determination would yet lack the true devotion needed for such duty.

If Hal was unable to inspire a new generation of such good men, then neither his brother nor his sons, should he father any legitimate ones, would have the means to hold together a kingdom than had gone lone past crumbling into broken.

But Hal was sitting in a tavern, drinking and plotting petty pranks. John had tried intrigue and gossip and trickery and blackmail and bribery, and none of it had worked. He found himself, at last, reduced to blunt honesty.

The candle on his desk was burning low, and his hand was aching and ink-stained, but under his steady pen, he had finished a list of everything Hal would need to know when his time inevitably came. Long lists of nobles weak to bribery and others easy to blackmail, careful notes on marriageable daughters and sons in need of training or fostering, names of soldiers and servants deserving of promotion or punishment, remarks on clergy and who they influenced and what they wanted. It wouldn't replace dedication and experience, but it might give Hal enough of a reprieve to learn before it all fell apart under his hands.

**

The problem, John thought, was that Hal never quite understood kingship. He had picked up the crown before his father had died, and hadn't quite put it down since. John, being a dutiful son and a dutiful brother, had noticed and noted, and kept most of his counsel. There would be time yet. Not enough for him to relax, but enough for him to at least make sure their father would get a proper burial.

He was reluctantly glad to see his brothers share in his doubt and worry, at least. Between the three of them, maybe, they could keep the worse part of Hal's tempter in check. And right there was another thought he'd rather never had. There was only a worse part, no worst one. There was so much of Hal unsuited to kingship, or leadership of any sort, that trying to appoint a part most unsuited would be an exercise in both futility and frustration, and John was not much a friend of either.

He listened to Hal's overblown and overbearing expression of condolence, and had to bite his tongue on any answer he might make. He had lived under two different kings making promises not worth keeping, and ones impossible to even attempt, and he knew the difference between a sincerely believed lie and one that is merely told out of courtesy or desire to please. Hal, once again defying expectations in new and disappointing manners, managed both simultaneously.

His speech to the Chief Justice, at least, seemed somewhat more truthful, and if even the smallest part of it were true, there might be some hope yet for England, if not for her kings. And between grief and worry, John would simply have to cling to that hope with everything he had, and, god willing, he might see the end of yet another reign, and the beginning of a better one.

**

The problem, John thought, was that Hal never quite understood grace. Of course something had to be done about his Sir John Falstaff, but the man had been, in his own strange way, quite valuable to Hal's education and at least his skills at rhetoric and drinking, both nothing to be sneezed at in a king, especially one facing several potential wars and possibly a rebellion. Being less drunk than one's opponents in any given debate could be the difference to make or break a peace or marriage treaty, or even the simplest of truces.

If Hal had only said something, John might have been able to sort this out quietly and subtly, leaving Falstaff with a decent pension and Hal a grudge carried against him shorter. But apparently, whatever skills at drinking and acting Falstaff had managed to instil in his king, he'd neither a head for diplomacy nor for impulse control.

John found himself doing what he had prepared himself to do since Hal had attained his first sliver of independence, but never imagined in quite this way. He went to make apologies for his brother, his prince, his _king_. Falstaff, against all expectation, took both John's hasty excuses for Hal's behaviour and the small but far from insignificant pension with something that might have been grace in a better man, but looked like nothing so much as grief on Falstaff's wine-reddened face.

It was sobering, to realise that for once, it was his brother someone wanted to see about a matter of politics, and not John himself. For no matter how distasteful John found the man, Falstaff had become a matter of politics the moment Hal made him his friend, and a matter of diplomacy the moment he had dismissed him so harshly, and in front of witnesses no less. John was doing what he could, but if Falstaff decided to be trouble, it would take a king to stop him. Their king. And until they put him to the test, there was no way of knowing whether he would be able or willing to.

Falstaff, greedy and selfish, but loyal in his way, had done what he could until Hal had sent him away. And now, it seemed, it was John's turn to do the same, as well he could. And he who had prided himself on being cautious and careful and considered, instead of simply saying his goodbyes and leaving Falstaff to his drink, found himself thanking the man, in clumsy and rushed words, stumbling into and over each other until he wasn't sure he made any sort of sense any longer.

Falstaff's wan, heartbroken smile would haunt his dreams for years to come. Hal, no matter his other failings, seemed to have that effect on people.

**

The problem, John thought, was that Hal had never quite understood audacity. There was no dare his brother would not gladly and joyfully take, and no prank he would leave unplayed. John had years of first fond, then exasperated, then despairing memories of things poured down his back or balanced between door and frame of his room or hidden in unexpected and often revolting places. Hal had always been the sort to do things simply because he could, and because he wanted to just at that moment. And yet, he had never shown the least tolerance for it in other people.

To the best of John's understanding, Hal had never seen his own behaviour as audacious or daring. Hal had been heir to the throne for far too long in either theory or reality, and had then become king far too easily. What little resistance he had been shown had died along with Harry Hotspur on a rain and blood soaked battlefield years past. And there, too, would have been other options for a traitor's son, especially one as skilled and loyal as Hotspur was. But John hadn't been paying attention then, had never truly hoped or expected Hal to succeed that day.

Hal had been allowed to grow complacent, to see as kingly privilege something every nobleman's son would try his hand at the moment he found himself unobserved.  And then, there were tennis balls. It was neither the time nor place, but John knew bravado and posturing, especially when played with such brashness. No hounds baying for blood, nowhere near as dignified and purposeful, but no less destructive and wild for it. It was mere boys, sparring until first blood when neither of them should have been allowed even a blunted sword yet. And Hal, for all his carefully misspent youth, had never quite recovered from the insecurity it brought him when facing his court.

There would have been other ways, as there so often were when dealing with Hal. A war was very rarely inevitable, and if one had to happen, in John's hands, it might have been at a considerable advantage for England. But Hal, rash and desperate to prove himself as king and general, didn't stall and buy the time to muster a proper army, to prepare for a proper war. He set his sight on a goal, and threw himself into reaching it as fast as possible, come hell or high water.

John would never hold any particular affection for the French, but he couldn't but be grateful for their tempering his brother's pitiful attempts at warfare and strategy into something that might just pass muster in a bad light and under cursory examination. And weary and angry and dirty as he was, defeat barely a single mistake away, so close to losing everything Hal had so recklessly gambled, he couldn't help but pick up sword and shield again, a figurehead more than ever a soldier, and shout, _God, for Harry, England and Saint George_.

For the first time since he realised he would forever play second fiddle to Hal, the cry was more than lip service.

**

The problem, John thought, was that Hal never quite understood love. He was trying his best, self-deprecating smiles and clumsy French, but for all his charm, his exploits had reached ears other than English ones. Henry V was no one's idea of an ideal match, and no man would lightly give away his own daughter to a man rumour still had was unlikely to ever get her with child, not for lack of ability, but for lack of desire, regardless of said woman's beauty or skill or political standing.

John knew his history well enough to see that Hal was not the first in his line to face such rumours, and neither would he be the last. It seemed strange that people would be so concerned about it. Surely, if a woman could do duty to her husband in lying back and thinking of England, a man might be able to do the same, think of a friend or shieldbrother, and do what was expected of him. If nothing else, the arrangement would keep either of them from overindulgence.

Hal, though, seemed to have decided on love as the leverage he wanted to use in this game of soldiers, and there would be no budging him. There was little to nothing John could do to change his mind, and less that could be done about the rumours. So with victory a stale and empty promise of glory, he made concessions and bartered peace and stability for a sliver of land not worth the fighting and dying over, all to make his brother happy.

It wasn't worth it, John knew. Hal had never seen the sacrifices made in his name and on his mere word as anything but his due as king. A sacrifice made out of something as fraught and twisted as a brother's love would always be too much and yet far from enough. Hal would never be content to grow old, and without an heir to his name, his title would fall to John. Hal had grown into his crown and title over the years, but it had always been Harry first and England second. He loved his brothers, distanced and absentminded, but John didn't mistake that love for affection or trust.

To Hal, every man would think of England second and of himself first. He had planned and played a lie for years upon years, biding his time in a dank and dirty Eastcheap tavern. Nothing would seem too far-fetched for him in this court of lies his father had left him. John was readily and willingly risking his country for his king and brother, and Hal would never see it as the first move in a game of chess neither would ever admit to playing. So John would do his best to ensure that Hal never learnt of it.

If there was love to be found in this world, John knew, it would not be in anyone's bed, and in no prayer or devotion. What love there was left, after war and famine and disease and death had ridden roughshod over battlefields and churchyards, palaces and streets, was the fierce and helpless desire not to see his brother fail the way his father and uncle had. If Hal had decided or desired to find love in a political marriage and alliance, then John would do anything he could to ensure that Hal was at least allowed to try.

**

Henry V, King of England, Heir and Regent of France and Lord of Ireland, died unexpectedly on the 31st of August, 1422. He left behind a son a few months of age, and a country barely recovered from her last war and a single diplomatic misstep away from her next. He was smiling.

The problem, Hal thought, was that John, for all his love and loyalty, had never quite understood freedom.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from a song by Swiss singer and songwriter Mani Matter. It's called 'Si hei dr Wilhälm Täll ufgfüert' and tells the story of a small village deciding to stage Schiller's 'Wilhelm Tell', a play about how the first declaration of independence for what would end up as Switzerland had been declared. Over the course of the song, the play devolves into a tavern brawl, and after two hours, the actors who played the Austrians are finally beaten. The song ends on the line 'si würde d Freiheit gwünne wenn si dewäg z gwünne wär', roughly 'they would win their freedom if it could be won this way'.  
> It's a curiously contradictory statement coming from a man who cheerfully wrote a song about just how easy it would be to blow up the government building should said government ever fail its people or its country too far.  
> Of course, most of Mani Matter's ideals are a bit too democratic and a bit too socialist for any of Shakespeare's histories' kings, but somehow, this one line, to me, explains Hal's character in a way entire books have failed to do.  
> (And I figured, with there being quite the number of works on here titled randomly in Russian, Japanese, Gaelic, and Latin, I was allowed one work titled in my native language.)  
> (Youtube has purged all of Mani Matter's songs, it seems, but it can still be found on spotify, if you're curious)


End file.
